Sunday, September 30, 2012

Chances are, if you've seen "The Master" by now you've done a fair bit of reading about the film as well. From the reviews to the interviews to the 'what-does-it-all-mean' pieces (like this excellent one from Vulture), the film has become a hot topic of conversation and should prove to be for some time to come. We've read probably 50+ reviews of the film and continue to check them out on Twitter as our readers send them in. We've also been enjoying listening to a few podcasts for more in-depth analysis. We recommend checking out Slate's Spoiler Special for a great hour-long discussion of the film and Grantland's Hollywood Prospectus podcast as well. Our friends over at The Auteurcast have been doing a series on the films of Paul Thomas Anderson and were kind enough to invite 1/2 of the Cigs & Vines team (me) on to discuss "The Master." The 90 minute conversation was barely enough time to scratch the surface of the film but hopefully will be an entertaining listen nonetheless.*

You can download The Auteurcast podcast on "The Master" here.
Subscribe to The Auteurcast on iTunes.

Friday, September 28, 2012

I was starting to think Paul Thomas Anderson was “processing” me, much the way cult inductees are in The Master, his cerebral workout of a new film.

Having played the “maybe” game for an in-person interview all during
TIFF, which eventually became “maybe not,” word was that the elusive
Anderson was suddenly available for a telephone chat.

Then the appointed hour comes and goes, and there’s no call from PTA
and no immediate explanation from either his Canadian or U.S. publicists
for his absence.

Ninety minutes later, a misdialed telephone is blamed and a contrite
Anderson is on the line: “Hey Peter, it’s Paul. Sorry about everything.”

Apology accepted. And it immediately occurs to me that much about Anderson is open to wild interpretation in the wake of The Master, a film that resists easy analysis.

The story of an uncommon bond between a feral sailor (Joaquin
Phoenix) and a cerebral cult guru (Philip Seymour Hoffman) has a
father-figure dynamic common to Anderson’s work, right back to his 1996
debut Hard Eight (a.k.a. Sydney).

But the nut of The Master, his sixth feature, doesn’t crack open as easily as Anderson’s earlier films, which also include There Will Be Blood, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love and Boogie Nights.
There are long passages that don’t necessarily lead anywhere, the
female characters are blurred, (especially Amy Adams’ whore/Madonna
figure), and the resolution is unconventional, to say the least.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

"The Master" is already in theatres but PTA decided to drop us one last trailer entitled "Last One / Thank You" which is an epic 4 1/2 minutes and features a ton of previously unseen footage (screened only for select journalists at Cannes). And to help you out, we've already updated our guide to the film's Deleted Scenes & Alternate Takes with all the new material. Enjoy.

Ever since the news first broke that "The Master" would be shooting in 65mm, questions have lingered about exactly how much of the film would be shot in the large-format. We knew before the film's release that the number was definitely over 50% but Kodak sat down with cinematographer Mihai Malaimare who confirmed that the number is closer to 85%.

Anderson and Malaimare
initially planned to shoot mainly portraits with 65 mm, about 20% of the
movie. Even in situations where audiences are not seeing a 70mm print,
the 65mm-originated scenes deliver breathtaking images that draw viewers
into the story.

“As we were looking at dailies, we saw that every 65mm shot was
so amazing,” says Malaimare. “After a week or two of shooting, we
switched, and ended up shooting something like 85% of the movie on
5-perf 65mm.”

The 35mm cameras – Panavision Millennium XL2s –
were brought out for handheld scenes, or other shots that required a
dirtier look. “When your eyes are accustomed to what 65mm looks like in
terms of grain and depth of field, with these amazing landscapes,
switching over to a smaller negative area, you perceive the difference
immediately,” says Malaimare.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Box Office Mojo reports that "The Master" continued to perform strongly in wide release collecting an estimated $5 million this weekend from 788 theatres. That puts the film in 7th place for the weekend just behind "Dredd" which opened in around 1800 more theatres and gives it the highest per screen average of any film in the Top 15 this weekend. (For comparison, this opening is a little higher than "There Will Be Blood"'s $4.8 million back in 2007 during its second week expansion.) Congrats to Annapurna Pictures & Weinstein Co. on the film's success so far and let's hope that the desire for repeat viewings keeps the film doing well in the coming weeks.

Speaking of repeat viewings, Slate critic Dana Stevens wrote up a magnificent piece where she re-reviewed the film after watching it a 2nd and 3rd time.

"There’s something deeply and irreplaceably pleasurable about revisiting a complex, ambitious film a few times in close succession on the big screen if possible, and letting each iteration inform and expand on the last. Having gotten the chance to do so this week not only deepened and transformed my experience of this particular film, it reminded me why I started wanting to think and write about film in the first place."

Read the entire thing over at Slate. Two new TV spots featuring some new footage (though not new if you've seen the film by now) are up at Fandango. (They also feature some inadvisable narration so perhaps worth watching just for that.)

If you haven't already you should check out our Deleted Scenes guide to look at all the material that made it into the teasers and trailers but not the final cut. And be sure to enter our Gone To China Contest to win Jonny Greenwood's soundtrack and perhaps some other things we may decide to throw in.

I caught the film for a 5th viewing over the weekend at the grand old Ziegfeld Theatre just to continue my tour of seeing it across all of NYC's 70mm venues. How about you? Did you see the film more than once? How was your first/second/third viewing? Sound off in the comments.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Last week, Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master" opened in limited release and shattered attendance records playing to packed houses all weekend long in New York and Los Angeles. Today the film expands to nearly 800 locations across the U.S. and Canada including 70mm presentations in Seattle, Boston, Washington DC, Austin, Toronto, Oakland as well as NYC and LA. For those of you outside of North America, your patience will be rewarded soon with a film that is absolutely worth the wait but for many readers, today is the day you've been waiting for.

Lucky for you, we've been preparing for today too. Last week we recalled the films' long and winding road to the screen and today we'd like to celebrate in a different way, by introducing you to our "The Master" page. There you'll find a treasure trove of behind-the-scenes info we've been collecting on the film these past few months including interviews, production notes, deleted scenes and more. For those of you have been avidly avoiding spoilers until after you've seen the film, this is the time to dive in. Here's a user's guide:

Read our brief history of the project and then relive that initial excitement by revisiting the film's teasers, trailers and posters featuring a wealth of material not seen in the finished film.

Dive into our brand new Deleted Scenes section to track all of the alternate takes, deleted and extended scenes from those clips that didn't make it into the final cut.

Read the film's Production Notes to dig deep into The Story, The Cast, The Photography, The Design and The Music, featuring quotes from Paul, producers JoAnne Sellar and Daniel Lupi, production designer Jack Fisk and composer Jonny Greenwood.

If you think you plan on seeing the film more than a few times, hold onto your stubs. Personally I'm going to be rounding viewing #5 later this weekend but we have some teaser posters to give away courtesy of The Weinstein Company and we'd like to reward those hardcore fans who keep going back. (Contest details TBD.)

But most importantly, enjoy this moment. If you've been reading the site for a while, remember the long road it took to get here and how special it is to be able to see a new Paul Thomas Anderson film in theatres. As we said last week, "See the film, see it more than once, take your friends and remember
that we're lucky to live in a world where 'The Master' exists." The next few weeks will be important in proving to studios that getting behind a visionary filmmaker like PTA is a risk worth taking.

And if you feel so inclined, please spread the word about Cigarettes & Red Vines. Thanks for reading, everyone.

We have 5 copies of the excellent "The Master" soundtrack on CD to give away courtesy of The Weinstein Company so we thought we'd have a little contest. The disc features 11 original compositions by Jonny Greenwood as well as standards by Ella Fitzgerald, Jo Stafford, Helen Forrest and actress Madisen Beaty. One song not featured on the disc, however, is the rendition of "(I'd Like To Get You On) A Slow Boat To China" which *SPOILERS* is sung quite memorably a capella by The Master to Freddie during the film. So, to remedy this absence we'd like to see your rendition of the song. So all you have to do is record a video of yourself serenading someone with the song, we'll post the best videos here and the Top 5 (as voted on by Cigs & Vines) will receive a copy of the soundtrack. It's that simple.

2. You must sing the song to another person also in the video. (Pets and inanimate objects will be considered on a case by case basis at the discretion of C&RV.) The more intense the better, additional instrumentation is optional, close contact is advised.

The contest deadline is Friday October 26th (5 weeks from today) with winners to be announced the following week. You may start uploading your videos now however and we may RT some of our favorites in the meantime. The Master awaits.

Update 9/5: We also have a few copies of the as-of-yet-still-unavailable-for-purchase teaser poster to give away as well (courtesy of the Weinstein Company) which we'll throw in as an additional prize to any really great entries.

One
of the first things you may notice about "The Master" is that many, many
of the scenes present in the film's marketing did not make it into the
finished film. An LA Times
article cites Joaquin Phoenix as saying that PTA doesn't worry about
continuity, he's open to improvisation and often scenes that might take
up one-eighth of
a page can shoot for a day and a half. The actor told Time,
"Paul will write many, many scenes that won’t make it into the movie."
In some cases entire scenes have been left unused, while in other cases the scene in the trailer is an alternate (and sometimes substantially different) take of the one in the film (ie:
the "Just tell me something that's true!" is not present during the finished jail sequence). To make note these changes, we've compiled a list of the deleted scenes as well as extended and alternate takes from the various marketing materials that don't appear in the final cut.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Quick update for you this morning as the news keeps rolling in. In case the video of PTA discussing the film wasn't enough for you yesterday, you can now watch interviews with both PSH and Amy Adams. Adams speaks to David Poland mostly about "The Master" in this 30 minute interview below. (via @gazzwa)

A new poster for "The Master" has dropped for the film's French audiences, though it should look familiar to anyone who went to the Castro screening in San Francisco last month (via The Playlist). The film will be released in France on January 9th.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

The day finally came on Friday as Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master" finally opened in limited release. Playing in just 5 theatres in NYC and LA, the film had sellout shows all weekend taking in an incredible $729,745 and breaking the record (previously held by Wes Anderson's "Moonrise Kingdom") for the best limited debut ever for a
live-action film with a $145,949
per-theater-average. (For comparison "There Will Be Blood" averaged $95,370 when it opened in 2 theaters back in 2007.) Deadline has the scoop straight from Weinstein Co.

“We’re thrilled with the numbers. It set the screen record and all the
credit in the world goes to Paul Thomas Anderson with his guerrilla
marketing strategy combined with moving the [release date] to this weekend,”
said said TWC Head of Distribution Erik Lomis. “I’m expecting my phone
to ring off the hook from exhibitors tomorrow.” The Weinstein Company
had initially set an October rollout of The Master which picked
up best director and actor awards at the recent Venice Film Festival
where it was reportedly also the be jury’s pick for the top prize, the
Golden Lion, until fest officials enforced a rule that limits the number of big awards per film.
Lomis credited the cast’s performances for bringing out audiences over
the weekend and Anderson for organizing pop-up screenings, driving
word-of-mouth. Lomis called the strategy “an eye-opener” that clearly
worked. “We could not be happier”. Weintstein plans to move The Master into 600-800 theaters in its second round.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Paul Thomas Anderson just hit the wall. His eyelids are starting to
droop over his steely blue eyes, and the five-o’clock shadow looks like a
dark muzzle, slowly suffocating the man who just walked away from the
Venice film festival with the majority of the hardware for his latest
film, The Master.

“At this point, nothing but a nap will
do,” says Anderson, who’s been holed up in a Park Hyatt hotel room for
the past two hours. One of the swarming handlers looks up momentarily
from her BlackBerry to offer the American auteur a cup of coffee, which
he waves off with an air of fatigued frustration.

Freddie Quell, the character Joaquin Phoenix plays in Paul Thomas Anderson's
epic drama "The Master," is a World War II veteran with a fierce case
of post-traumatic stress and an unquenchable thirst. He is a master
mixologist of ingredients that were never meant to be blended together
or imbibed, a bootlegger manufacturing rotgut out of pure poison.

"So
much of it is borderline ridiculous," laughs Anderson during a chat at
the Toronto International Film Festival the afternoon after "The Master"
made its Canadian debut. "We'd read these stories about guys who
thought somehow that they could pour pure alcohol into the bread and
sort of squeeze it out and that would somehow make it not tear your
stomach apart, and I thought, 'That's great! I've got to get that in the
film.' And then when you really dig underneath it, basically, the real
story is, 'Yeah, we knew idiots that would do that, and those were the
guys that tore their stomachs apart, that were s-ing for days and weeks
after that.'"

Does your master have a name — God, Yahweh, Allah, Vishnu, Great
Spirit, Creator, Father, Mother — or remain nameless? Is He/She/It an
abstraction — love, light, power — or have you met? Has your master sat
across a table from you and asked you to account for your
transgressions? Did you stare your master in the eyes without blinking?

The Master, Paul Thomas Anderson’s sixth feature film, is an
epic, 70mm story of tiny details that plays out viscerally on the most
complicated expanse imaginable:

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Today, "The Master," the sixth film by Paul Thomas Anderson finally arrives in theatres. It's been five years since "There Will Be Blood" (which itself was five years after "Punch-Drunk Love") so we wanted to take a moment to appreciate this moment which has been a long time in the making. The film was first announced nearly 3 years ago in December of 2009 but it was not an easy road to the screen. Universal, who had originally been interested in producing, passed on the film and actors who had been attached -- Jeremy Renner and Reece Witherspoon among them -- moved onto other projects. As 2010 wore on, it looked like the film may not ever see the light of day and it was a pretty dark time for PTA fans.

Paul even began writing another screenplay which looked like it had better odds of going forward and fans wondered if his Untitled Religion Project would ever see the light of day. It wasn't until February of 2011 that the film finally found financing through Megan Ellison and her Annapurna Pictures shingle. Four months later the film began shooting throughout California on a completely locked down set. Rumors swirled, those involved in the project gave only non-details about their experiences and Paul himself didn't speak a single word about the film until about a month ago. Nobody outside of production got a look at any of the principal actors until nearly a year after the production began. But through it all, we hunted down each snippet of information, rare as they were.

And then suddenly came the first photo, the teaser, trailers, interviews, secret screenings and on and on. The last three months have been a deluge after a long, long drought and we couldn't be more thrilled to try to keep up. Now, suddenly the film is no longer an abstract idea, it's real. And it's actually in theatres for us to watch, analyze and admire as many times as we want. If you aren't fortunate enough to live close to NY or LA, the film will most likely be in a theatre near you next week or sometime very soon. So see the film, see it more than once, take your friends and remember that we're lucky to live in a world where "The Master" exists. Because it almost didn't happen. And if you feel so inclined, why not drop @AnnapurnaPics or @meganeellison a quick note of appreciation.

We expect things to continue to be pretty busy around here for the next few months so stick around, lots more to come. Thanks for reading.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

After a lovely weekend at the Toronto Film Festival, we're back and ready to catch up! Hopefully you all were following along with us on Twitter where we tried to keep up with the avalanche of news as best we could, but if not here is the rundown of what you missed. (It was a lot.) Speed round!

1. 'THE MASTER' WINS BIG IN VENICE
"The Master" picked up a pair of major awards at the Venice Film Festival for Best Actor (tie) for Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman and the Silver Lion Award (Best Director) for PTA. The film had also been selected to receive the Golden Lion Award (Best Film) but the jury was forced to revote due to some silly rules about winning more than one award. Regardless, this is huge great news for the film and both Paul & Harvey Weinstein have spoken out about how happy they are.2. TIFF PREMIERE
"The Master" had its North American Premiere at TIFF on Friday where I caught the film for a second viewing. It was just as brilliant and enigmatic as the first time and was seemed to be rapturously received by most critics. Paul was there to introduce the film briefly (which was running about an hour behind schedule due to the previous film running over) and you can watch his intro here (taped by me).

4. AUSTIN & NYC SCREENINGS
The film had 70mm sneak preview screenings in both Austin and New York this week. Paul was on hand to introduce the Alamo Drafthouse screening in Austin Monday night while Amy Adams and Harvey Weinstein gave introductions at the NYC showing on Tuesday at the Ziegfeld Theatre. There were of course two new teasers cut for the film which you watch below (or find on our "The Master" page as Teaser Trailer #5 & #6). Word on these screenings was (once again) dropped pretty last minute so apologies if you weren't able to get tickets. 5. LA TIMES INTERVIEWS JOAQUINThe LA Times interviewed Joaquin where he discusses working with Paul, his acting hiatus and how he's not sure if he knows any more about his character now than when he started. Also features some great quotes from Paul. 6. HUFFPO INTERVIEWS PTA
Paul was also interviewed by the Huffington Post where he talks 70mm, cutting those teasers himself and his "natural attraction to redheads." Definitely worth reading. (We've archived it here.)

7. LISTEN TO THE SOUNDTRACK NOW
"The Master" soundtrack by Jonny Greenwood is now available for purchase on Amazon or you can stream it on Spotify. It's wonderful. Also features "No Other Love" and a little ditty by actress Madisen Beaty.

TC: I saw your movie [The Master] a few days ago, I had a couple hours before the movie, and I went and picked up some dvds: The Passenger and Barry Lyndon. I found a sort of strange correlation between all the films.

PTA: I don't know The Passenger very well, I think I saw it, maybe ten years ago maybe twelve years ago, no maybe more, I think I saw it in 99, I don't know it very well, but Barry Lyndon I know kinda deeply and I just love that film. I think it was probably the last Kubrick film I saw and for some reason when I was a kid and I just kinda was intimidated by it, maybe how long it was, and I didn't really like it at first, I didn't get it. And years later I came back to it again and I just saw how funny it was. I mean that was the first thing that struck me, how kinda side splitting a lot of it was, and then in recent years I picked it up again found myself really really drawn to it and that film, that story and what he did with it.

TC: What I know of you, through a distant lens, you seem to be not only a lover of film but a scholar of film.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

"The Master" is a movie people are going to be talking about for a
long time. Paul Thomas Anderson's haunting meditation on friendship,
manipulation and man's desperate search for sanity is more enigmatic
than his earlier films -- it neither grabs you by the throat, like
"There Will Be Blood," nor twirls you around the dance floor, like
"Boogie Nights." When it screened at the Venice and Toronto film
festivals, the general response was: Whoa, I'm going to need to see that again.

The film's central relationship -- and riddle -- concerns a troubled
World War II vet named Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) and a charismatic
sect leader named Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), whose
friends and followers call him Master. Dodd, who likes to preach that
humans are not animals and needn't be ruled by our emotions, is
fascinated by Freddie, a rage-filled loner whose idea of courting is to
scrawl "Do you want to fuck?" on a piece of paper and present it to the
object of his desire. (Don't worry: he also adds a smiley face.)
Freddie, in turn, is torn between his belief in the Master's power to
heal him and his suspicion that the whole thing is just another con. In
an early, face-to-face therapy session, Dodd proves that he can get
behind Freddie's defenses, but whether he can heal his unruly pupil is
less clear. Freddie, in turn, repays his would-be savior by violently
punishing anyone who dares to question Dodd -- an arrangement Dodd
clearly enjoys, despite his tepid protests to the contrary.

Johnny Cash in "Walk the Line," the ruthless emperor's son Commodus in "Gladiator," and now a violent, wayward World War II veteran, Freddie Quell, in Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master": Does Joaquin Phoenix play dangerous, intense and troubled so well because it's not much of a stretch?

The
actor has blurred the boundary between difficult professional and
personal personas for years, cutting off photo shoots and appearing
disdainful of interviewers. Most notably, there was his long dive into
performance art in 2010 — in which he grew a shaggy beard, went
monosyllabic in TV appearances and pretended to quit acting, delving
into a world of debauchery to transform himself into a rapper for the
film "I'm Still Here."

So it was a bit of a jolt to
find Phoenix, 37, light, open and impish on the Chateau Marmont patio on
a recent Saturday morning. Dressed in a rumpled light blue dress shirt,
dark blue cords and heavy black boots that seem inappropriate for an
80-degree day, Phoenix came armed with a pack of American Spirit
cigarettes, a lighter and a surprising sense of mischief.

Friday, September 07, 2012

As you may know, "The Master" will have its North American Premiere at the Toronto Film Festival tonight and Cigs & Vines will be there to cover it. I'm actually heading to the airport now but just wanted to give everybody a headsup that news will be a little slow on the site over the next few days but stay tuned to Twitter because we'll be writing about our adventures over there. Paul and co. will be in attendance and we're hoping to see more than a few of you at the beautiful Princess of Wales theatre at 9pm sharp. Have a good weekend everybody!

Tuesday, September 04, 2012

Early on, Mr. Phoenix said: “I told Paul I wasn’t going to self-modulate in any way. I wanted to just expose the id.”

Today the NYTimes posted a great (but brief) interview with Joaquin Phoenix who talks about his brilliantly unhinged performance in "The Master." Read the entire thing here. The Village Voice also sat down with Paul a few weeks back for a lengthy interview which was also published today. There are some minor spoilers (the ending is discussed in the next-to-last-paragraph on the last page) but it's a fantastic read and easily the best of the recent interviews. We've archived it here too in case you want to save it for later.

In other news, we received word directly from The Weinstein Company that "The Master"s 9/14 engagements in New York and LA will be exclusively in 70mm. In NYC, those theatres are The Angelika, Village East Cinema and AMC Lincoln Square and in LA the Arclight (with more theatres possibly to join.) Tickets are now onsale for opening day at Village East Cinema in NYC and opening weekend at the Arclight with tix going onsale for the other two within the next week or so.

Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master's MasterTalking 70mm, Joaquin Phoenix, and researching Scientology for his sixth and most anticipated film

"I've made six movies, and I feel like I'm only just finally
figuring out how this business fucking works," Paul Thomas Anderson says
on an unseasonably mild August afternoon in the Astoria section of
Queens, where later tonight he will preview his latest film for an
invited audience at the Museum of the Moving Image. The movie is The Master, Anderson's first in the five years since the Oscar-winning There Will Be Blood,
and one of this year's most feverishly anticipated cinematic events—a
must-see status attributable to Anderson's vaunted standing among
serious film buffs, to the secretive nature of the production (at a time
when we know far too much about most movies before we see them), and,
mostly, to the film's subject matter: the early days of a self-help
religion that bears more than a passing resemblance to L. Ron Hubbard's
Church of Scientology.

Monday, September 03, 2012

A bit earlier we told you that "The Master" had its official debut at the Venice Film Festival where the film picked up some rave reviews. Most critics seemed to agree that it's a dense and challenging
but ultimately stunning achievement for Paul. Deadline says that the film
has received the best score in a festival poll of over 20 critics so
let's cross our fingers the film could pick up an award or two from the
fest. We've started compiling the reviews here for easy clicking for after you've seen the film. For now here are a few highlights...

It was a big news weekend for all things Paul Thomas Anderson as "The Master" had its official debut at the Venice Film Festival. We were out of town during the madness and tried to keep up with it as best we could but in case you weren't following along with us on Twitter, here's a rundown of what you missed.

Paul confirmed (for the first time) that he is indeed adapting Thomas Pynchon's "Inherent Vice" and spoke about the project to both Empire and ScreenDaily in interviews (via The Playlist). To refresh your memory, the logline for the 2010 novel reads like this (via Amazon).

Pynchon's deceptively lighthearted stab at detective fiction is a lazy
jog through the brambles of stoned late '60s Southern California, with a
half-cocked private eye named Doc Sportello, who specializes more in
meandering than actual investigating. Freaks and straights talk past
each other, their meanings eluding all attempts at mutual comprehension,
and Ron McLarty channels Doc's slurred mumble expertly and vividly
brings to life the novel's sun-soaked, druggy ambience.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s hugely anticipated The Master,
starring Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman, world-premiered in
Venice on Saturday, and now heads to Toronto. Anderson’s first feature
since 2007’s Oscar winner There Will Be Blood tells the story
of a damaged soldier in post-WWII America who strikes up an unexpected
friendship with the charismatic founder of a new religious cult.

Screen spoke to the director during a roundtable interview in Venice immediately after the film’s world premiere.